our perception controls the activity of our genes.

Recent advances in cellular science are heralding an important evolutionary turning point. For almost fifty years we have held the illusion that our
health and fate were preprogrammed in our genes, a concept referred to as genetic determinacy. Though mass consciousness is currently imbued with the
belief that the character of one's life is genetically predetermined, a radically new understanding is unfolding at the leading edge of science.

Cellular biologists now recognize that the environment, the external universe and our internal physiology, and more importantly, our perception of the
environment, directly controls the activity of our genes.

I have a video from Bruce Lipton, talking about how there's scientific evidence now that genes are not controlling who you are, but you control your
genes by reacting to your environment. ie. if

This video is split into 2 parts, don't know how to upload it to any site. The name of the seminar is The New Biology. It's all about perception.

Very true. Princeton University has been studying the effects of consciousness on physical reality for years now, and has determined that our
consciousness actually does interact with and influence the world around us. At present we can only determine this on a quantum scale, nothing that
can be applied practically as of yet. But we know it's there and there's no denying it, and that's a start.

If it has been proven that consciousness influences physical reality on a quantum scale, then logic would tell me the idea of our consciousness
influencing our genes is definitely believable.

Facsinating topic - I've been thinking about this very subject for a while myself, so it's nice to see some interest on it on the boards.

I've noticed, ever since a personal epiphany in my early twenties, and a summarily appropriate change in lifestyle and interests, that it seems my
aging has somewhat slowed - at least, everyone says I look younger than I actually am.

Originally posted by masterp
That's especially obvious when one considers that stigmata started to appear in wrists instead of palms when a scientist announced that Jesus was not
nailed by the palms but by the wrists.

Very interesting Masterp, I was not aware. Have any links/books to reference for that?

I know he was nailed to the wrists and not the hands. Do you have links to support that wrist stigmata started around the same time that discovery was
made?

Makes you wonder whether the food we eat. If someone knows that eating a large pizza is bad for you, because of the calories and fat, will his cells
react with the receptors that receive the cells for fat and calories? By changing his perception, do you think it's possible to change his belief
that it's actually bad for him, and somehow send a signal to his cells to change the protein and activate receptors that normally grab 'good'
nutrients instead?

What if I took someone who's never had a pizza? I told him that this is a food created by I don't know... let's say doctors, that it's loaded
with good nutrients and vitamins? Since he wouldn't have a memory of anything named Pizza, and his belief that I am speaking the truth, will he
still gain the same calories and fat you or I would get if we were to eat it?

Any subsequent attempts to reduce the weight are then interpreted as a threat to the body's survival. As a result, the brain automatically slows
the body's metabolic rate to reduce the burning of calories. Scientists involved in the study hope to find out exactly how the brain does this but
think they already know why - evolution

I am not sure if I used the quote/url in agreements with the terms and guidelines, so I apologize ahead of time.

Moreover, this power of organisms to influence the world in which they live results in
a kind of biological action at a distance. One population can influence another by
changing important features of the physical environment. Australian inland river
systems are prone to salination. Water-tables rise to the surface, and then dry in hot
spells leaving a salt residue. But salination is influenced by the very vegetation it
affects. Trees lower the water-table, reduce salination, and hence improve the
prospects of a raft of salt-vulnerable species. These indirect ecological links expand
the range of potential coevolutionary interactions in ecosystems. Populations act on
one another via the physical changes they induce. Waste recycling is the cleanest
example. Plants produce litter as a by-product of their life: fallen leaves, twigs, bark.
A host of organisms live by consuming the litter, and as a consequence of these
actions, they return crucial materials to the soil. This is absorbed by the vegetation,
which in turn produces more litter

If organisms as basic as plants can change their environment and the way they adapt to it, then surely us humans (some more than others) should be
able to accomplish the same?

I recently got rid of my TV, I have no TV now. I am finding so far, that I am less angry, worried, and when I look at all of the city as a community
of organisms, which we are, I start to let go of some of my individual needs... for example, to always be right at work (if I'm constantly unwilling
to negotiate with others), the company as a whole 'organism' will suffer.

If I drive in a competition frame of mind, where most people here do, with the 'I want to get home first' attitude, that is when accidents happen
and hinder the community of organisms trying to get home, hence making things more difficult for everyone.

I want everyone to try and let go of some of their individual 'me' attitude and try to look at the world from an 'us' point of view.

This current lifestyle, which is based on competition both from how science used to look at the human body, and our mindset, is only making us think
as individuals rather than look at 'us' as a whole. This can start with you looking in the mirror and realizing you're made of trillions of cells
all just like you. You are yourself a community. Now, look at your neighborhood, it's a community. Your city, state, country and finally planet.

Up until now, this was looked at as 'it's all in your head' or attitude or greed
whatever you want to call it. I believe the sources present the evidence that
in fact what we believe will essentially manifest itself in us and around us physically.

After analyzing the health data collected from more than 12,000 people over 32 years, the researchers found a person’s chance of becoming obese
increased by 57 per cent if someone they considered a friend became obese. That risk increased to 171 per cent if it was a mutual friend.

This is one of the first studies to use social networking science to examine behavioural health problems, said study co-author Nicholas Christakis, a
physician and professor at Harvard Medical School.

“It’s very trendy to speak of the obesity epidemic,” he said. “We wanted to know if it is indeed an epidemic, whether there is a spread from
person to person of a social contagion.”

The researchers also reported that the cascade effect is seen in up to three degrees of separation before it fizzles out and that friendship more
strongly affects the spread of obesity than links between spouses, siblings or neighbours.

Sounds like one person's perception is shaped by the fact that if someone close to him is obese, then somehow it's 'OK', then he adapts to that
environment and so do his cells and next thing you know, he's obese as well.

Almost sounds like how kids act as their parents, because that is their perception of how to live.

From what little I've read about Bruce Lipton, he's right..up to a point..and then standing on the brink of reality, he's sucking down a big dose
of Deepak Chopra Kool-aid and jumping off the cliff into academic suicide.

Epigenetics and gene interaction topology isn't the furtive little mystic sub-branch of genetics that he's making it out to be. You get a dose of it
in Micro I, for God's sake. I don't think I've had any sort of cellular biology class in which it WASN'T mentioned.

Cells change the expression of their DNA constantly. Each gene has at least one regulatory sequence up front - if you need a certain enzyme, other
genes will react to cellular states and cause the production (or destruction) of "bookmarks" that will flag certain gene areas to turn on or off to
adjust the cell's function to adapt.

That's the straight forward way - there are lots of epigenetic structures that produce inheritable changes in the DNA, that's how you have
differentiation in cells. Your bone cells know how to be liver cells, but expression of that part of the DNA is semi-permanently inhibited.

Some cells can even pull from a stored bank of "known good structures" and create new DNA from them in response to challenges. That's one way your
immune system can adapt to unknown bacteria. You couldn't possibly store all the variations that could exist in bacteria - how does your immune
system build antibodies for them all? It does so by making DNA to fit out of a bank of "DNA building blocks". McClintock won the Nobel for figuring
out how that worked.

So does epigenetics exist, yes. If it didn't, your cells couldn't function for long, they have to adapt to changes in their environment, and that
mechanism is often epigenetic.

Can your brain alter your body's DNA expression - yes in some ways. Your brain can emit, or cause to be emitted, a lot of different hormones, and it
can affect your body's homeostatic state. Some of this can cause "modifications" such as telling the cell's DNA to manufacture more enzymes for
living from ketones instead of sugars, for example, or to prepare for more efficient anaerobic functioning, or to enhance or inhibit your immune
system.

So if I read something that hacks me off, my brain will interpret that irritation as the need to prepare for action, to some extent. Various hormones
will be produced that will raise my blood pressure, make my respiration more efficient, shunt blood from my intestines to my muscles, open my pupils
to admit more light and so on. These signals will reach down into my cellular level, telling my cells to prepare for anaerobic states, to prepare to
release sugar from stores, etc. So in a way, yes, my "thoughts control my cellular functions", but only with a broad brush.

Here's where it starts to leave Science Lane and turn onto Bullcrap Drive. When you see people who should know better start saying things like "the
energy of your thoughts caused those reactions", watch out, because the BS is about to flow. No, your mental state was interpreted as a
possible upcoming need to react physically by a part of your brain which deals with body maintenance. It started edging you into a sympathetic
response in order to prepare.

What you don't have is a way to turn into a werewolf, or become 20 years old again, or grow 3 inches taller as an adult, or any of the other crap
he's selling books on. That's where he nose-dives off the rationality cliff to join the quantum-babblers in the bolgia of the self-delusionists.

Here's a study confirming that while a fetus is in the womb, it learns to recognize its mother's voice.

Science Daily — Kingston, Ont. -- New research findings on the ability of a fetus to recognize its mother's voice and even distinguish it from
other female voices confirms what scientists have speculated about for more than 20 years - that experiences in the womb help shape newborn
preferences and behaviour.

Bruce Lipton also mentioned the same thing in his video, stating there's evidence that the environment that the mother perceives does pass on to the
fetus.

I do agree with you Tom on yes, I cant just think that I am 20 years younger, and bam, it will happen, but you have to realize that the bar hasn't
been set yet. We do not hear how long people live and how younger they feel, we hear how they have to fight aging, and take lots of medicine to keep
themselves healthy. But what if you hear about one person managing to achieve the same results but without surgery, botox, exercise, or whatever else
will come out for people to fight aging with? Now instead of one person, what if there were 100 people that managed to do it simply by changing the
way they see the world? Now what if that story was all over the news and people 'accepted' that it is possible? Now as we use this more and more,
and learn to develop this new skill or tool, do you think that in 50 or 100 years, we won't be able to achieve what you suggested? When we would see
that people before us set the bar, eventually there will be others that will push the boundary higher.

Originally posted by quintar
Here's a study confirming that while a fetus is in the womb, it learns to recognize its mother's voice.

Well, that's something it hears all the time, no mystic thing there.

Bruce Lipton also mentioned the same thing in his video, stating there's evidence that the environment that the mother perceives does pass on to the
fetus.

Given that a lot of the mother's hormonal signals pass the placental barrier, this isn't unexpected either, at least, as I said above, with a broad
brush. If she is stressed, the baby will be too. If she is happy, it will influence the baby to be happy. If she's short of a particular nutrient,
the baby may alter epigenetics to prepare to be more efficient with this nutrient post utero.

But she can't "imagine world peace" and give birth to Gandhi, or concentrate on Gus Grissom and pop out an aerospace engineer. That's where Dr
Lipton and I violently part company.

I do agree with you Tom on yes, I cant just think that I am 20 years younger, and bam, it will happen,

But that seems to be what he's saying, at least in his less lucid moments. I keep expecting him to announce he's become a "breathairian".

But what if you hear about one person managing to achieve the same results but without surgery, botox, exercise, or whatever else will come out for
people to fight aging with? Now instead of one person, what if there were 100 people that managed to do it simply by changing the way they see the
world?

I suspect in that case you should do both fraternal and identical twin studies, because you're going to find it's partially genetics, partially
environment, partially behavior. Aging is a really complex topic. Twin studies would help you isolate the genetic vs the in utero environmental
issues, and then you do a really in-depth analysis on behaviors. Did one twin lay around in the sun, or smoke, do drugs, eat a lot of bacon while the
other didn't?

And, yes, I've no doubt that having a certain type of outlook would reduce wear and tear, but due to stress reactions rather than "I think I can I
think I can" happy-think. Some people roll with the punches and some just stress out.

You can, for instance, spot within about a 95% accuracy who will fail SERE by doing a simple blood test for cortisol levels on the second day. The
guys that are freaking out will have high cortisol, and are expending energy like mad on an unnecessary fight/flight reaction.

But that reaction, too, may be genetic. I'm not sure you can train a type A to lay round singing "hakuna matatta".

i'd pose the question of Yogis & Fakirs using mental gymnastics, induced brain states, to affect body functions...
and infer that thought can alter the systems in ones body if not cells or genes also???

~~~~~~

in another example, constant fasting will cause the persons physiology to change, for a purpose of surviving on a near starvation diet.

In preparation. one will mentally prepare for fasting, then automatic or instinctual or normal responses will take over after a crisis point is
reached

~ ~but the legendary persons on air diets,
or only eating a spoonfull of dirt twice a week
have to willfully make the involuntary response mechanisms 'turn off'...
which is to my view a way of 'will' overcoming domain of nature/natural drives

the Bruce H Lipton PhD ideas, are in the realm of another mystery spieler,
Rupert Sheldrake PhD

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